With the Measure You Use

Matthew 7:1-5 “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

During the days of Jesus Christ, it was common place for a market place to sell their product with their version of a “weighing” scale. A good Jew would have always given their customer the benefit of the doubt. They always let others be favored in the transaction. It is what Jesus is referencing in this verse with how we deal with others. Unfortunately we often are the greedy merchant leaning the scale in our favor. We often have planks in our eyes trying to remove a speck in another.

If someone, even a brother or sister, is afflicted with an illness, how often do we say within ourselves well they had it coming because of this or that. However when we are afflicted with an illness, of course its the devil attacking us due to our obedience to God. We may wrongly be accused and spoken falsely of and it is a great offense to us, but when we hear of things spoken of another we often join in casting stones.

We could go through many more examples, but humankind is often like Job’s friends. There is certainly a liberty releasing everything into the hands of God. Even more so actually getting on our knees before Him to see what He sees and thinks. He has first and last word.

May we give grace, mercy and love to all including ourselves. May we weigh the scale in others favor and leave the rest in God’s hands.